Prezi Presentation

Here is an outline of my final project on Urban Renewal in Prezi form.

I really liked working with Prezi. I want to continue to enhance this presentation and become more familiar with the tool.

Urban Renewal Project on Prezi

Podcast and Documentary

I quickly finished my podcast that I started last week in class. I'm not quite sure if we were supposed to finish it or not, but here is it anyways!  I simply read aloud a short chapter from a book that I want to include in my final project, House On Mango Street. 

I recently viewed a documentary on a band, "The Gits," simply called, "The Gits."  The band had emerged on the Seattle local music scene just before Nirvana put the city on the map.  They had just signed with a major label in 1993 when the singer, 27-year-old Mia Zapata, was brutally raped and murdered.



There were no suspects and the crime went unsolved.  Shortly thereafter, due to lack of results from the police department, Joan Jett filled in on vocals at a benefit concert to raise money for a private investigator, to no avail. 

Filmmaker Kerri O'Kane started making a documentary nearly a decade after the murder of the singer to commemorate the band and Mia's life.  During the filming of the documentary, the state of Florida arrested a man with matching DNA from Mia's murder.  Nearly 11 years after the murder, they pinned the rape and murder on the perpetrator.  It was the first conviction using DNA in Washington's history. 

The documentary was nearly finished at the time of the news from Florida.  That being said, the documentary intially focuses on the band, their do-it-yourself start, and Mia's rape and murder. O'Kane interviews from the former band members, Mia's father, friends and fans. 

The death of Mia was obviously such a mysterious part of the band's history.  The documentary becomes much more interesting and successful when the rape and murder suspect goes to court and is found guilty.  The documentary ends on a relatively positive note and definitely changes the grim theme of the band's history.  The documentary's audience expands from it's esoteric start to an almost Hollywood closure.

For a teaching idea integrating documentaries........For my final project I want to integrate a documentary option to a unit on "Radio Golf," House on Mango Street, and Urban Renewal.  The major project during/after the reading the two texts, would be a neighborhood ethnography of the student's neighborhood.  Based on their findings, the students could, amongst many other options, produce a documentary depicting issues in their neighborhood.

Comic Life Reflection

I loved using Comic Life!  I can see students REALLY getting into this as an alternative final unit project. 

I guess, as an undergraduate fine arts minor, I used space as the biggest guiding force behind my comic.  I recalled the few comics that I have read, like the "Bone" series and Maus.  I used the pictures more as a painting already on a canvas and just designed the text bubbles withing the space of the pictures.

Comic Life looks so professional and I think that kids see the validity behind that.  Other Language Arts technologies that we have used, like Voicethread, seem a bit clunky compared to this.  I can see this as a real advantage for kids to express themselves through this comic medium.  Graphic Novels are becoming a huge influence with students and I think comics could be a fun way to engage kids. 

TV News Anaylsis and Lesson Plan

I watched the WCCO news at 10:00 on Wednesday evening.  First of all,  I was surprised that the first commercial break didn't happen until 21 minutes into the program.  But, there were also commercials at 27 min and 31 min and the program finally ended at 10:34.  Here's the play-by-play:

2 min - Coon Rapids Shaken baby syndrome victim
1 min - Apple Valley computer hacking victim by a Cleveland Indian
3 min - Michelle Bachman and other election issues
1 min - more slots at Canterbury proposed
1 min - Daughter killed on Grand Ave
2 min - disturbing DVD sent by PETA to Middle School activist
30 sec - Amazon under scrutiny for selling controversial petaphile book 
30 sec - record setting weather!
1 min - Gold prices hit another record
5 min - Gopher stadium and Gopher football
1 min - ad for "The Defender" on same network
30 sec - Fitzgerald shipwreck revisited
3 min - weather
30 sec - upcoming news
4 min - commercials
2 min - Vikings news
4 min - commercials
1 min - Timberwolves news
3 min - commercials
30 sec - weather

There were four commercial breaks but they all happened in the last 13 minutes of the news show.  All of the news was local.  There was no national or international news.  Local news had 13 minutes of coverage.  Local sports also dominated the news with 8 minutes of collected coverage.  It was beneficial for the newscasters because there were a few records set, like the weather temperature and the price of gold. 

I was really surprised at how much emphasis is put on the locality of each news segment.  The victims and perpetrators are described solely on their locale and occupation.   

Here is my lesson plan surrounding news:

The students have spent a week learning about different techniques that each station uses in order to dramatize their version of the news story.  For instance, The Daily Show uses humor, sarcasm, fake news, interviews, and wit to report the news.  CNN uses dramatic effect such as large graphs, location-oriented reporting, and multiple points of view to report their news.  The evening local news uses personal stories to tell the news, like interviewing a local resident to comment how the national news story has affected them personally.  FOX News explores the conservative base with opinion-based news talk shows and national news. 

Divide the classroom into groups of four.  Each group will be given the same news story to report (i.e. the mid-term election) but each group will be assigned a different point of view in which to tell the story.  Each group will be assigned either CNN, The Daily Show, the local evening news, or FOX News as a point of view in which to report the oil spill.  The group needs to choose on which aspect of the election they will report on (keeping in mind the target audience).  They can choose any angle on the broad election topic as long as it’s geared towards their news channel. 

The group will write a dialogue to report in the mock news show according to the point of view, target audience, and persuasive techniques in which they were given.  They need to use effective persuasive techniques to express their point of view as well as engaging their assigned target audience in their video.  One or two group members will act as news reporters while the other two or three group members work on camera operation and simple set design and props. 

Digital Poem and Comic Strip

Here is my digital poem, "Nelson, My Dog" by Gary Soto.  It features, once again, my dog Sophie.

Also, here's my Comic Life comic strip about my trip to Gooseberry Falls.

Podcasting Reflection

It was encouraging to learn that other teachers such as Rebecca Oberg have been integrating spoken word, rap, and songwriting into their curriculum.  In Rebecca's case, her students made up their own rap lyrics in response to Cather in the Rye.  I had my recent high school graduate recite lyrics to a poem for his rap. 

First of all, it was really fun to do this project.  But, It took me and the rapper a long time to create this podcast.  He was kind of a perfectionist and really wanted to edit a lot and get it perfect.  He did the first two or three stanzas and then "cut and pasted" his own chorus.  That being said, I think it turned out exceptionally well.  But, I had to send him home after three hours.  I don't know how I would give this assignment as an option unless we had a multi-media room and a lot of time to complete the project. 

I would also have to teach kids how to use royalty-free beats, much like royalty-free images.  There is a lot to learn about copyright issues: it's hard to keep up.

Like I said in my previous post on podcasting, I think my rapping project turned out well and could really engage some unengaged students.  Oh, here is The Raven once again. 

Genre Analysis: Cable Access

At certain times, I love watching cable access.  It's always so random, amateur, and esoteric.  I enjoy being confused and disoriented compared to regular TV shows, where you are spoon-fed the direction of the show.

The protocol for releasing a cable access show is quite easy.  All you have to so is attend a class or two and you have access to rentable camera equipment and the ability to air your show on TV.  Of course, one major downfall with cable access television is the limited financial capacity to hire professional actors, professional film crews, and major editing software critical for a professional-looking TV shows. 

Perhaps my favorite cable access show is "Viva and Jerry's Country Videos."  According to the Minneapolis Television Networks website, the show show can be seen at 4:00 AM, 4:30 AM, 9:00 AM, and 9:30 AM, on channel 17.  The show has been around for a number of years now (since 1989)  and I've seen quite a few episodes.  The premise is one of a traditional music television show but Viva and Jerry only show about two country music videos per half-hour episode and have a kind-of talk show for the rest of the episode.  This is an exceptional example of the cable access genre because Viva and Jerry have had much "success" with their show.  They've appeared on "The Daily Show" as well as many local news channels. 



Viva and Jerry always have a "theme" for each of their shows.  For instance, the most recent episode that I saw was Halloween themed.  They also do a yearly show at the State Fair.  There is a large green screen behind them that shows a large photo of something pertaining to that theme.  Viva and Jerry usually spend the rest of their episode showing trinkets, masks, greeting cards, and anything else that fits into their theme of the day.  When Viva gets done showing each of her items, she often rings a bell that sits to the right of her.  Jerry blows a bike horn after many items as well.  Jerry often times puts his thumb out and, in a circular motion, rotates his thumb around and says, "two bucks, two bucks."  I have no idea what this means, but he does it about twenty times a show.   

Viva does most of the talking but Jerry is an intriguing character too.  He has a character named "Cliff" that is, simply a face drawn on his thumb.  He often puts hats on Cliff and makes him talk.  Furthermore, I've seen Jerry do his own country songs on the show.  He is a talented singer/songwriter and often times hosts the annual Johnny Cash tribute show at the Cabooze.  

I think cable access is a great thing to teach kids.  Many public access shows broadcast community organization meetings and other important community events.  Because public access is so easy to access, kids could broadcast their own movies made in school and show them to the public.  I think this would be highly encouraging to young film enthusiasts.  In turn, their audience could expand from the classroom and You Tube, to general people in their community.  "Viva and Jerry" would be a great example of a successful cable access show for the kids. 

Perhaps a lesson plan idea would be to have students, in a multi-media course, to apply for access to the Minneapolis public access channels.  Perhaps they could get around taking the courses because of their classes in high school.  The students could create a video pertaining to a community event and broadcast it for the public.  The students could also just air their videos made for class, but I think public access is best utilized serving the community.  Just exposing them to public access and the opportunity it lends, is important.   I could teach about the importance of free speech and freedom of expression as well.

Here is VoiceThread presentation of "Viva and Jerry's County Videos" public access show.